260 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



biggest fish, and also that, wanting length to give him line after 

 he is struck, you must be forced to tug for it : to which I will 

 also add, that not an inch of your line being to be suffered to 

 touch the water in dibbing, it may be allowed to be the stronger. 

 I should now give you a description of those flies, their shape and 

 colour ; and then, give you an account of their breeding ; and 

 withal, shew you how to keep and use them : but shall defer 

 that to their proper place and season. 



Viator. In earnest, sir, you discourse very rationally of this 

 affair, and I am glad to find myself mistaken in you ; for, in 

 plain truth, I did not expect so much from you. 



Piscator. Nay, sir, I can tell you a great deal more than this : 

 and will conceal nothing from you. But I must now come to the 

 second way of angling at the top ; which is with an artificial 

 fly, which also I will shew you how to make before I have 

 done ; but, first, shall acquaint you, that, with this, you are to 

 angle with a line longer by a yard and a half, or sometimes two 

 yards, than your rod : and with both this and the other in a still 

 day, in the steams, in a breeze that curls the water, in the still 

 deeps, where (excepting in May and June, that the best Trouts 

 will lie in shallow streams to watch for prey, and even then too) 

 you are like to hit the best fish.* 



For the length of your rod, you are always to be governed by 

 the breadth of the river you shall choose to angle at : and for a 

 Trout river, one of five or six yards long is commonly enough ; 

 and longer (though never so neatly and artificially made) it 

 ought not to be, if you intend to fish at ease : and if otherwise, 

 where lies the sport ? 



Of these, the best that ever I saw are made in Yorkshire, 

 which are all of one piece, that is to say, of several, six, eight, 

 ten, or twelve pieces, so neatly pieced and tied together with 

 fine thread below and silk above, as to make it taper like a 

 switch, and to ply with a true bent to your hand, and these too 

 are light, being made of fir wood for two or three lengths 

 nearest to the hand, and of other wood nearer to the top, that 

 a man might very easily manage the longest of them that ever 

 I saw, with one hand. And these, when you have given over 

 angling for a season, being taken to pieces, and laid up in some 

 dry place, may afterward be set together again in their former 

 postures, and will be as straight, sound, and good as the first 

 hour they were made, and being laid in oil and colour, according 

 to your master Walton's direction, will last many years.f 



The length of your line, to a man that knows how to handle 



* For fishing with two or more flies, see note on next page. 



t The great objection to rods in many pieces is, that they are not 

 sufficiently pliant ; and no angler, who is as near his station as Mr Cotton 

 was to the Dove, should think of such a pieced rod as he describes J. R. 



